Font height is specified in printer's points, referred to in this book as just points. A point equals approximately 1/72 of an inch. The line weight and appearance of a font are specified by the categories listed in the following table.
Examples of Line Weight and Font Appearance Categories
┌────────────┬────────────┬────────────────────────────────────┐ │Attribute │Category │Description │ ├────────────┼────────────┼────────────────────────────────────┤ │Line Weight │Normal │Characters drawn with a normal line │ │ │ │weight │ ├────────────┼────────────┼────────────────────────────────────┤ │ │Bold │Characters drawn with a heavier line│ │ │ │weight │ ├────────────┼────────────┼────────────────────────────────────┤ │Appearance │Condensed │Characters drawn with half the │ │ │ │average character width │ ├────────────┼────────────┼────────────────────────────────────┤ │ │Expanded │Characters drawn with twice the │ │ │ │average character width │ ├────────────┼────────────┼────────────────────────────────────┤ │ │Italic │Characters drawn with a normal line │ │ │ │weight and sloped to the right │ └────────────┴────────────┴────────────────────────────────────┘
A font family is a collection of fonts that share common design characteristics such as stroke width and serif. Stroke width refers to the width of lines used to draw the characters and symbols of a font. A serif is a short cross-line drawn at the ends of the main strokes forming a character or symbol.
Text output is drawn with the characters and symbols of a font. The operating system stores fonts either in memory or on devices. Applications can access fonts through a device context associated with the current presentation space. When an application creates a presentation space, using GpiCreatePS or WinGetPS, the operating system assigns the presentation space a default font from one of the available fonts. An application can retrieve information about the default font using GpiQueryFontMetrics.